Medial geniculate body at a glance
- What it is
- The medial geniculate body is the thalamic relay nucleus for hearing.
- Location
- It is a small elevation on the posterior-inferior thalamus, medial to the lateral geniculate body.
- Function
- It receives auditory input from the inferior colliculus via its brachium and projects to the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA73309 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Part of the metathalamus.
- Its ventral division projects tonotopically to the primary auditory cortex on the transverse temporal gyri (of Heschl).
- It receives auditory input from both ears, so a lesion here does not cause deafness in one ear.
Structures next to the medial geniculate body
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Lateral geniculate body · nervous
- Brachium of inferior colliculus · nervous
- Postcommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Parahippocampal gyrus · nervous
- Superior colliculus · nervous
- Anterior choroidal artery · cardiovascular
- Fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Hippocampus · nervous
- Inferior colliculus · nervous
- Optic tract · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Medial geniculate body (FMA73309). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §12.1 Basic Structure and Function of the Nervous System. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.